I am doing the CDDA challenge and I am about 2 months in. Needless to say, I've been losing weight. I've been country living, with no wheels. Any way.. I've gotten lucky a few times. Once, I managed to find three fishing poles and a wire trap. Good thing too, because spearfishing is just not happening. I managed to gain up to 75 in weight. But, all three of my fishing poles broke and its back to foraging and looting country homes.

I am absolutely unable to do any trapping. Apparently the only way to trap is after a magazine is read. There doesn't appear to be a beginner trap to use to start gaining skill. Except maybe a mouse trap that can't be crafted. I did find the snare trap mag. But that requires level 1 trapping. So, that is useless. I The loot seems to be pretty slim.

So, my question is this. Will I wither away and die if I eat fruit and vegetables that are foraged or farmed? If so, how low in weight can I go before I die? I have no problem at all with my hunger moodles. Winterberries, Beauty Berries, Oranges, Rosehips, and other oddities (worms & dogfood) keep me feed. As soon as I get peckish, I eat something. But, I keep losing weight. I am currently at 62 and falling. I am also eating the food I loot from farmhouses. But, that doesn't to keep my from losing weight. I am scared to just start gorging food. I am trying to ration the food to stretch it out. If I just gorge all my food in three days, I fear that may make things worse instead of better. I am trying to stretch things out till spring. Then spearfishing is on the table and I have a way to return to a decent weight.

You start to die at 35 weight iirc, It's not instant but it's hard to bounce back from it in time.

As for surviving from foraged/farmed stuff, you absolutely can- But you have to completely ignore your hunger moodle. Veggies and fruits fill way more hunger than calories, so you need to make meals out of them, eat till you're full to bursting- Then wait for the moodle to wiggle twice so you can eat again, then eat another whole meal at once, repeat again and again till you've dug yourself out of the calorie deficit you're in.

I have a weight writeup in my post history, give me a min and i'll find it.
Edit:
Oldish quote of mine, still relevant.. Forgive any phrasing that seems to be targeted at another user.. 'cause it was, hehe. But this contains the relevant info you're looking for.

Originally posted by Shurenai:

Weight gain/loss mechanics are a bit simplified, but loosely grounded in reality. There are several nutritional elements in food, and each of these nutritional elements has a numerical value that can affect weight gain- too much of carbs or lipids and you get 2x or 3x multipliers to weight gain; and caloric intake goes between -2200 and 3700. Each of these values decays over time, but Calories is the only one that determines if you're actively gaining weight.

If the last time you ate you stuffed yourself with something that had a ton of calories, or if your general eating habits in game were pretty awful and you've overfilled carbs/lipids/calories, it can take a long time for the calorie meter to drain down to the point where you're not gaining weight anymore. Solution here is to, yknow, not eat everything you come across, don't down every tub of ice cream you see, etc...

I don't know exactly what you ate, but I know that your weight gain problem is one you got yourself from not paying attention and not taking care what you ate. Recommend taking the Nutritionist trait the next time you play; if you ever play again, so you can see these values and eat more sensibly.


Also of note, your nutritional values have no direct interaction with your hunger meter. If you eat every time you're hungry, especially if you're not taking any care with what you eat, it can make you overweight. Hunger determines whether or not you need to eat; not how much weight you gain. You can choose between, for example, eating cabbage or peanut butter when hungry. One will ultimately make you lose weight if you keep picking it, the other will ultimately make you gain weight if you keep picking it.

As an example, A whole cabbage has just 178 calories, 0.71 fat, and 178 carbs and fills 25 hunger; A jar of peanut butter on the other hand also fills the same 25 hunger but has a monstrous 2660 calories, and also 224 fat and 128 carbs.

In short, You CAN gain weight by only eating potatoes, But you have to eat a LOT of potatoes- You need to consume more calories by potato than you're spending, which means you'd have to be stuffing your face with a potato every time you can even though your character is already essentially full.

Originally posted by Shurenai:

The carb thing isn't a typo, just a failed clarification- At least as I understand it, The values 1200-1700 are a combined total between carbs and lipids, both of which cap out at 1000. So if you have 1000 lipids, and 200 carbs, you hit the 1200 breakpoint.

Weight is updated constantly. Think of it just like your hunger or thirst, for which there's a value in the background that gradually decays until it reaches breakpoints that make you peckish/thirsty. It's the same for weight, The value gradually ticks up(or down) over time until it reaches a whole number.

For calories lost/gained, If for some reason you hit -2200 calories, which is the absolute lowest, it just stops there- There's no cumulative bank of deficit. So when you eat something that gives even 1 calorie, you'll go to -2199 and then burn off that calorie normally. Similarly, if you reach the cap of +3700 calories, Any additional eaten literally vanishes into the void- There's no bank for going too high.

The normal calorie range to maintain your weight is like 0->1700~, so if you want to think of it this way, then you could consider the 2000 extra from 1700->3700 to be your 'positive bank', and from -2200->0 to be you 'negative bank'.

For ideal conditions, If you are in the highest bracket of weight gain (1700+ carbs+lipids) and maintain the calorie content to continue gaining weight (staying above 1700~ calories), you'll gain around 3 a day. In the absolute worst I think you can lose 2 a day.

Uhm.. Think that answers all of it.

I would really suggest you to pick up a mod like Simple Status or Minimal Display bars and enable the nutrition info, Calories/Lipids/Carbs/etc, once you see it all in action it makes WAY more sense.

Oh, and you're only gaining/losing weight when the arrows are there in the weight panel- If it's an up arrow, you're gaining weight, 2 up arrows is quickly gaining weight, and vice versa for down arrows. No arrows means your weight is not changing at all- It's staying exactly as it is with no gain or decay.

Hope all that makes sense.
Edit: If you need clarification on any of it lemme know.

>how low in weight can I go before I die?
Youll start taking damage once you are at or under 35 weight.

If you are having trouble with food in the CDDA challenge you can either kill farmer zombies in hopes of getting a cabbage seed package to gain weight or wait until March 1st so you dont have the winter penalty for fishing and regain it that way.

Cabbage alone can allow you to GAIN weight, assuming you gorge yourself and do too much activities that consume calories. like, stop jogging around your base.

That's also the least boring way to feed yourself since they high value per unit require less click/time spend eating. I suggest looking for QOL mods like autocooking (grab a bowl and it auto pick food and cook for you), and Eat a stack (you can stack x10 or x100 basic crops to eat in one go instead of clicking 100 radishs).

Originally posted by Oragepoilu:

Cabbage alone can allow you to GAIN weight, assuming you gorge yourself and do too much activities that consume calories. like, stop jogging around your base.

Cabbage has low calories. It's meant to maintain or lose weight.

You'll need to consume high amount of vegetables and fruits. Even then, there'll be hardly be any weight gain.

I don't try to trap or fish in CD DA games unless I've min-maxed for it. I typically target 5 skill each in Apoc games to be ready to trap or fish in the winter, but higher is ideal. Otherwise you just have to loot non-perishables until spring I think. Great non-perishables for weight gain:

* Entire jars of peanut butter
* Boxes of cereal
* Alcohol before bed. Like entire bottles of wine. Booze makes you sleepy so avoid it during the day time. Also a great painkiller if you come across any before that deep wound heals up. And it thwarts depression, which is kind of messed up.

While healing that groin injury, there's plenty of gas stations, bars and general stores in outskirts areas to loot.

In the early game I typically hit the edges of the RV park here (Ben's Cabin to the West is a decent overnight looting base):

https://map.projectzomboid.com/#11450x8951x2374

The gas station/used car/clothing store/spiffos area North of the RV park:

https://map.projectzomboid.com/#11635x8299x1780

I usually get a car by this point. Either way I typically move towards riverside, looting from farm houses along the way.

Still a damned good starting safehouse area even at higher difficulty/population

https://map.projectzomboid.com/?#6646x5510x2374